Advertising is advertising. Exporters need to advertise for the same reason as everybody else – to promote a brand. The only difference is that your brand – company, product or service – needs to be communicated to an audience in another language and, quite possibly, through different media.
You know your brand. And so do your national customers and prospects. But do you need to review your brand positioning and key messages for an overseas target audience? Have you assumed that the selling environment is the same? Are there fundamentals that you need to address? Do they understand what you’re offering?
Let’s just assume that you’ve decided to support your brand with local language advertising. If you’re looking for sales leads, what’s the call to action? If you want to ‘own the customer’ and stimulate calls or emails to an in-house sales team, check they have the language skills to respond. If you have a good relationship with your distributor, put their details and logo on the advertisement.
Many, if not most, industrial markets are global. A customer or prospect might well see the same advertisement in a number of languages – on- and off-line. It’s therefore important that positioning and messaging are consistent across boundaries. The concept, copy and headline can all be localised, if necessary, but your overall brand proposition should be the same.
So, what’s the best creative approach to adopt? How can you develop advertisements that stop the reader/visitor and draw them in? Our experience of over 20 years of developing multilingual campaigns shows time and again that it’s the basic principles that work: a strong, simple concept, good headline and intriguing copy.
This is the end of my ‘best export marketing methods series’. As a reminder, bookmark this post and the previous topics of media relations, exhibitions, digital marketing, and collateral – or contact us if you’d like a no-nonsense evaluation of your export marketing plan.
